What was most striking to me was how diverse Indianapolis is. Not just statistically, but truly diverse.
A lot of scolding about big Red state cities being hickish & xenophobic.
That isn't necessarily the case at street level. Indianapolis, like a lot of red state cities, has large immigrant communities that mix with broader population. There is less inequality at the lived level
Not to keep beating this drum, but how immigration plays out in places with lots of immigration is far less confrontational and more successful than the national discourse thinks.
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Few thoughts from my first impressions from walking across Indianapolis
1) striking how diverse city is. Not in a statistical way. But in a lived way. A city can be diverse, but in separate bubbles, enforced & self enforced (looking at you NYC). That is less the case here
That is not denying the city, like all, is segregated, by race, wealth, & education. It is that it is less so. And people interact more. At a logistical & lived way, & in most importantly, in values” — that is how people get their meaning & view themselves
2) How interstates change everything. The path of the expressways defines neighborhoods, either by cutting & separating them from each other, or by filing them with cars, noise, & exhaust.
A city, like Indianapolis, with lots of highways intersecting jt, is X different cities.
So begins my walk, from Tonawanda to Lackawanna, (How Seuss-ian!) around some nice old school charm.
Hopefully to end in a bar in time for happy hour
Only ten minutes in and already the Buffalo as a physical Buffalo thing is getting old
Whatever the theological issues, can we agree Protestants (Pentecostals aside) got the worst aesthetics of all Religions. I mean. This is great and all, but this is a town hall. No soul lifting sacred-ness here
So begins my 15 mile + walk from Binghamton to Endicott: Amongst the brutally ugly renewal architecture of downtown. A little bit of Brasilia in Appalachian NY